Promising performances from British youth squad at World Championships

Great Britain’s young artistic swimmers put on some promising performances at the World Aquatics Youth Artistic Swimming World Championships 2023.

It was the third running of the Championships which were even more competitive this time around as more than 200 athletes took part at the Athens Olympic Sport Complex – which was built for the 2004 Olympic Games.

Four of Great Britain’s youth squad were involved with Maxwell Sewell amongst the male athletes, which has more than doubled in participation for this year’s competition.

The Aqualina athlete – who won Mixed Duet silver in 2022 – once again qualified for the final where he finished tenth in the Men’s Solo Free with a total score of 192.2607.

He also improved on his figures score by eight points from last year’s event, scoring 70.7878 for his four figures.

This time around the 16-year-old teamed with his club mate Kiarra Janikova for the first time on the world stage as they placed ninth in the world in Athens.

A score of 179.0961 in the Mixed Duet Free Final was a strong swim for the British pair, who earnt an impressive mark of 75.7500 for artistic impression alone.

The duet of Magdalena Townsend and Alyssa Anderson just missed out on the final with 16^th in the Free Duet.

The City of Birmingham duo performed well with their vampire themed routine but a slight base mark cost them the opportunity to make the top 12.

They ended with a score of 126.8647 for their routine which broke down in to 19.8000 for difficulty, 72.2500 for artistic impression and 54.7147 for execution in what was their first World Youth Championships.

Competed well

Karen Thorpe, Swim England artistic swimming manager said that the group had performed well as they learnt to adjust to the sports new rules.

She said: “I’m really pleased with the results from the World Championships particularly with Max in the Male Solo and the Mixed Duet too.

“They’re involved in some really competitive fields where the standard has increased so much in the past year. That is of course great for the sport and it’s good for us to know that we’re in the mix with a lot of those nations.

“For the girls, we always knew that the duet is the hardest event in all of the age groups and there was a lot of competitors in that event. Unfortunately they gained a base mark, which brought down their final ranking, but they swam very well.

“The domestic programme hasn’t yet fully embraced the new rules – which we’ll be starting in 2024 -so we hope that having the clubs take part in more competitions under the new system will help us improve internationally.

“There’s so many changes that it can feel like a completely different sport so I’m really impressed with how the athletes coped with that whilst still performing so well out in Greece.

“They’ll all move up to the junior age group for next season so we’re looking forward to welcoming them all to the junior trials very soon.”

You can find all the results from the World Aquatics Youth Artistic Swimming World Championships 2023 here.

Images: GB Synchro